Friday, July 12, 2013

The opening at the Vermont Supreme Court last night was wonderful. I usually don't like openings, but I had a great time and I think other people did too! Part of the reason was that people got to interact with the work a bit, using finger LED lights to cast shadows from the work onto the wall. Unfortunately I forgot the lights in my concern with getting the refreshments packed at home and then set out at the reception, so I had to wait until my husband arrived with them, about a third of the way through the 2-hour opening. I brought a camera, but I was having so much fun that I didn't take any photos.

Today I saw this quote from the artist Robert Morris (who made installations with platforms, ramps, and other constructions that visitors could move around on) which seems to speak to the pleasure people got from having an actual, physical way to interact with the work:

"Personally, I'd rather break my arm by falling off a platform than
spend an hour in detached contemplation of a Matisse. We've become blind
from so much seeing. Time to press up against things, squeeze around,
crawl over - not so much out of a childish naivte to return to the
playground, but more to acknowledge that the world begins to exist at
the limits of our skin and what goes on at that interface between the physical self and external conditions doesn't detach us like the detached glance."
- Robert Morris in a letter to Tate curator Michael Compton in 1971

Saturday, July 6, 2013

There is an exhibit of my disc-based artwork at Vermont Supreme Court during the months of July and August, 2013. The show is entitled DISC COURSE. An opening reception, to which the public is invited, is on Thursday July 11 from 5-7 PM. The Supreme Court is located at 111 State Street in Montpelier, and is open weekdays from 8:00 - 4:30.

The pieces in DISC COURSE are selected from my Circular Statements body of work, begun in 2005, which employs buttons and other circular elements. In addition, all the work in this exhibit uses spray paint, at least in part. Spray paint creates a fabulous, smooth surface that I can either keep as-is or overpaint with oil paints that add additional textures.

Come to the opening reception on Thursday,
July 11. Visitors will be offered small colored LED lights to shine on
my works and experiment with the effects created by the colored shadows. That plus good things to eat and drink!

In addition to the large 8x6 foot Circular Statements piece, there are two never-before-seen new pieces called All and Everything (I and II) (see above). All and Everything is also the title of the magnum opus of G. I. Gurdjieff, a spiritual teacher and philosopher whose works my mother (who died two years ago) studied for many years. I used all the spray paint left in my studio, and everything I could lay my hands on to create images and designs on the faces of the disks. Each of these pieces has two very visually busy sides - one with buttons and one without.

One wall in the back is completely covered with loose grids of disks from the Biodiversity work I took to Nagoya, Japan in 2010 and the later work based on letterforms and numbers:

course (kors), noun1. the path over which something moves or extends; a series of items or events: the course of a body of work from the first in a series to the most recent. 2. a program of instruction or education: the artist offered a course discussing the pieces in the exhibition.

discourse (dis' kors), nounverbal interchange of ideas: viewers are encouraged to engage in speculation and conversation about the work exhibited.

The work in DISC COURSE is from my Circular Statements body of work, begun in 2005, which employs buttons and other circular elements. In addition, all the work in this exhibit uses spray paint, at least in part. I have provided short texts ("courses") describing each of the pieces.